


Contemplate

by tfm



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 05:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18844567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tfm/pseuds/tfm
Summary: Beau is meditating.Or at the very least, trying to meditate.Things keep interrupting.Set during Episode Sixty-Two.





	Contemplate

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so the inspiration for this was that while everyone else was doing their thing in the Xhorhouse, Beau didn't seem to do anything at all that wasn't spearheaded by someone else, until her conversation with Fjord at the end. So this is what she was doing.
> 
> Most of the dialogue taken from the show, if a little simplified in parts.

Beau meditated.

 

At the very least, she _tried_ to meditate. Her peaceful thoughts were being constantly interrupted by random, loud noises from around the house. Around _their_ house.

 

The rest of the Mighty Nein seemed pleased that they had been given such a grand gift from Den Theylas, but Beau knew that anything they accepted was bound to come with consequences. Of course, she was sure they knew that too.

 

There was a loud crashing sound from somewhere above, followed by a muted cheer. Beau opened an eye, and then closed it again. Probably harmless. The next time she looked up at the ceiling, she saw roots growing through.

 

Jester came in and out of their room a few times a day, mostly, it seemed, to collect more paint. Beau had learned to meditate around Jester’s comings and goings. Of all the possible distractions, that was one of the least distracting ones.

 

For all that she’d spent the last few years learning how to punch things better, her meditation had never really improved. Every waking second of the day, her mind moved at a hundred feet a second, whether trying to think of how two puzzle pieces together, or what to say (usually the wrong thing).

 

For the most part, over the week were the rest of the Nein spent their time redecorating, and running errands, and having overdue heart-to-hearts, Beau was sitting with her legs crossed, trying to let her mind empty.

 

If her mind was clear, maybe she’d be able to figure out what the fuck she was going to do. War between the Empire and the Kryn, and here they were, stuck in the middle.

 

Of all the people in the group, she, and maybe Nott had the most to lose if they publicly turned against the Empire. Nott, at least, was making plans to get her family safe on the Menagerie Coast, though Beau privately wondered if anywhere was really safe these days. Tal’Dorei, maybe. Or Vasselheim. Beau was kind of intrigued at the idea of visiting the birthplace of humanity.

 

If she played her own cards wrong, she could lose Dairon, and the Cobalt Soul, and any chance she had of ever speaking with her family again. Not that she had plans to do that; it was just nice to know that the option was there, in case she got hit in the head really hard and forgot all the horrible shit they’d done to her.

 

Jester came in again, grabbing who knew what, and was making excited noises about a tree that Caduceus grew on the top of the tower. Which would explain the sounds. And the roots.

 

Beau closed her eyes tighter.

 

It shouldn’t be this hard to empty her mind. Zeenoth had always joked in that “I’m really telling the truth” sort of way, that her mind was already so empty that it didn’t make much of a difference. _Did she really care about losing the Cobalt Soul, or just about losing Dairon?_

 

Dairon, her teacher, her mentor, maybe even her friend. Dairon had been so vehement in her hatred of the Kryn, that Beau knew there must have been a story. For all that the Empress had been grateful that they had returned the Beacon, she was reluctant to do anything that might have caused peace.

 

There was an explosion from downstairs, and another cheer. Beau ignored it. Evidently, the Alchemy Lab was well underway.

 

Beau considered moving down into the basement to meditate, but figured that the way everyone was moving around the house, it would be just as noisy wherever she went. Jester came back into the room to get more stuff, and made a comment about a hot tub.

 

Beau opened her eyes, and went to ask a question, and then closed them again. She could visit a hot tub any time.

 

At one point, she fell asleep, which went to show how fucking _shit_ she was at meditating. She woke suddenly at the sound of banging. ‘Stop snoring and open the door.’ Caleb. What an ass.

 

‘I was napping,’ she grumbled.

 

‘When are you intending to get in touch with Dairon, because I don’t think we should freeball this any longer, I think we should bring her in.’ If you hadn’t _interrupted_ me, I was thinking about it, Beau thought to herself. She hated the fact that people assumed she didn’t think about things. She thought about _everything_. Most things, probably too much. Beau didn’t even dignify his words with a response. She shut the door.

 

‘I am going to talk to you through the door and everyone will hear me, or you can open the door and let me in, because this is—’ Beau opened the door, and gave Caleb what she hoped was a world-weary look. ‘May I come in?’

 

‘Yeah,’ she said, eventually, and stood back to let him in.

 

‘We need to have some sort of plan, Beauregard.’

 

‘Why? With her? Why?’

 

‘Because we made an allegiance with the leaders of a foreign power. She does not want you cavorting with them, but we are; for a purpose. I want the Cerberus Assembly to burn, but...the Dynasty is not going to stop if they do, and we need something to fill that vacuum if we have even a chance of doing that. Are Dairon and your Cobalt Soul willing to fill that vacuum to keep the Empire going if we rip the cancer out as we have spoken of. What are we doing? I have ideas, but...’

 

Vaguely, Beau thought that Caleb had a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Cobalt Soul did. Oh, sure, he knew that they rooted out corruption. But they weren’t the kind of organization you put in charge of things. Especially being that organizations you put in charge of things tended to end up more corrupt than when they started. Still, Beau would be fooling herself is she thought there wasn’t _some_ corruption in the Cobalt Soul. But that wasn’t the point of the conversation.

 

‘I have been going to sleep every night trying to figure that out.’ Plus, trying to freaking meditate every day. ‘I don’t know what we’re doing,’ she admitted. ‘I’m an _initiate_. I’m...more or less in training to be an Expositor.’

 

‘I think you may have graduated ahead of time, Beauregard,’ Caleb said. Beau wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a compliment or not. What they were doing – what _she_ was doing – was Expositor level information gathering of the highest order. Even if it wasn’t intentional.

 

‘Yeah, I think so too.’ A pause. ‘I don’t know if Dairon would hug me or kill me if she knew what was happening. And, I can continue to spin it. I can do that. And let her think that we’re continuing to walk that line, and continue to report. But everything that I report is gonna have to be cherry-picked and strategic and the more information I give up, the more it can jeopardize everything that we’re doing.’

 

‘But,’ Caleb said, ‘Neither of us are traitors to the Empire.’

 

‘Not yet.’

 

‘You and I know what we are doing. And Dairon can give us legitimacy.’ He clearly didn’t know Dairon very well. Dairon, who had taken on Beau and Jester in a pit fight to avoid compromising her cover.

 

‘We did just like...hand over their super awesome relic that can change time or make babies or whatever that the Empire stole, and now we have a _house_ that was just kinda like, gifted to us in the capital enemy city, but you’re right, we’re not traitors yet.’

 

‘We are also one step closer to healing a wound, and there are many, many steps left. You are here to root out corruption. In our home, you want to root out corruption, Dairon wants to root out corruption. My whole childhood is mired in it. Maybe we work one side, and get what we want on the other. But I don’t think we can just run roughshod over the Empire and get what we want, we might get killed.’

 

‘We also might get killed here; we are humans in a very unknown territory.’ Without the medallions of the Bright Queen, they’d probably be dead already. Well, it certainly would have made things simpler.

 

‘ _Ja, ja_. We are gambling for sure.’

 

‘I think every day is going to be a gamble.’

 

‘So what do you want to do? Do you to keep Dairon on the outside of this, or do you want to bring her in? Think about it. You don’t have to answer me now, but think about it.’

 

‘Aaagh.’ Beau had been thinking about. She had been doing nothing _but_ think about it while they all spent their time decorating, and talking, and blowing shit up, apparently. ‘I would like to talk to her before we run into each other. ‘cause you know how awkward that is when like...you know, you left it with things kind of hanging and then you run into each other, and you’re like “oh, I meant to call, I swear. Sorry I didn’t message you back.” So I don’t want that to happen.’

 

There was a long sort of pause. Beau really wanted him to leave, so she could go back to doing the thing that he was trying to force her to do.

 

‘Are you in love with Nott?’

 

Hah. He left real quick after that. What a fucking hypocrite. Always trying to force other people into awkward conversations, never wanting to participate in them. Ah well, she loved him anyway.

 

The truth was, she really, really didn’t want to talk about it. She was still trying to _think_ about it.

 

She closed her eyes. Upstairs, in the tower, there were lots of strange noises. Beau ignored them.

 

There was a knock on the door. Beau was all but ready to make Caleb flustered, and run away again, maybe by asking him if he had an outrageous crush on Shadowhand Essik. ‘Who is it?’ she demanded, and almost disappointed that she was deprived of the opportunity to rag on Caleb, when a soft voice said:

 

‘It’s Yasha.’

 

Yasha, who didn’t necessarily have any ties back in the Empire, but who was at least as anxious as Beau about being in Xhorhas, if not more. Beau had kept her distance from the other woman for a long time, knowing that her frequent advances were doing nothing to help a friendship develop.

 

In any case, it seemed poor form to bang someone you were traveling with, and then never talk to them again, which was Beau’s usual modus operandi when it came to sex.

 

Beau opened her eyes. ‘Come in,’ she said. Of course, she couldn’t use the same tactics to get rid of Yasha that she’d used to get rid of Caleb. Yasha would just get confused, instead of irritated. “Why would I be in love with Nott?” she’d asked, mismatched eyes wide.

 

‘Is everything okay?’ Yasha asked, nervously. Beau opened an eye.

 

‘Of course,’ she said, not sure if she really believed it. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

 

‘You’ve just been very quiet these last few days,’ Yasha said, with a slight shrug.

 

‘Well, you’d know about that,’ Beau said, not realizing how her words sounded until they’d left her mouth. She winced. ‘Sorry. That’s not what I meant.’

 

‘No, it’s fair,’ Yasha agreed. ‘I’ve never been the, uh...talkative type. But I don’t usually see you this quiet.’

 

‘I’m thinking about what we need to do next,’ Beau said. Her frown was so deep at this point, that she was pretty sure Yasha decided to drop the subject altogether.

 

‘Well, I was planning on going to the Marble Tomes to talk to an enchanter,’ Yasha said. ‘If you’d like to join me.’

 

Beau considered the offer. She wanted to get into that library pretty fucking bad. Instead, they spoke to an enchanter, and dropped a considerable amount of gold in helping to protect Yasha.

 

For half a moment, Beau thought about giving Yasha her own Bracers of Defense. It would make her a little easier to hit, but it would help Yasha stay safe in battle. Then, she decided that it might come off as a little weird, as though she was still pining.

 

The real reason she’d wanted to go was to find some way – any way – of getting into that fucking library. It was ridiculous that she’d spent so many times in her adult life trying to get _away_ from the library, only to now be so desperately wanting to get into one. She wasn't sure what she'd look at when she got there. Maybe something in the History section, to figure out a way to end this war without thousands of people dying.

 

‘Do you want Fjord and I to create a distraction?’ Yasha asked, clearly seeing the look on Beau – and probably Caleb’s – face.

 

‘No,’ Beau sighed, wondering when the hells she’d become so freaking patient.

 

‘We are going to do this the proper way,’ Caleb said. The proper way, apparently, being to invite Professor Waccoh over for dinner.

 

Disappointed at not being able to go to the library, they made their way back to the house. The Xhorhouse, as Jester kept referring to it as.

 

When they got there, Shadowhand Essik was waiting for them. Staring up at the fucking huge tree that Caduceus had planted on top of the tower. Beau still couldn’t quite get over it. A fucking _tree_.

 

‘Do you want to stay for dinner?’ Beau asked, before she’d even really thought about it. Maybe it was watching Caleb write out that invitation that put the idea in her mind; invite people over for dinner if you want something from them.‘Caduceus is probably whipping up something…delicious and vegan.’ She wasn’t sure why it was so important to invite Essik inside. Maybe if they spoke to him, befriended him, she could get a better understanding of his motives.

 

But no, in the end it was Caleb who had managed to get Essik’s attention. Beau wondered if it would have made a difference if she’d had even a shred of magical powers. Probably not. Beau wondered what he wanted in return for teaching Caleb spells. There was always gonna be a catch.

 

It was a thought that was still floating around her brain amongst all the other thoughts (man, fucking meditation did jack shit) as they made their way over to the Lucid Bastion. Beau grabbed Fjord and pulled him to the back of the group.

 

‘Can I talk to you?’

 

‘Yeah.’

 

‘I am a bit...in a conflict...in my brain.’ She had planned to start this conversation so eloquently, but then her mouth had gotten the better of her. ‘I haven’t...I don’t know what to do.’

 

‘About…?’

 

‘You, ah...remember Dairon? My trainer, my master?’

 

‘Sure.’ Fjord had met her, albeit briefly, in the City of Beasts.

 

‘I should probably reach out to her, right?’

 

‘Oh, about this?’ Fjord sighed. ‘Could you do that if you wanted to?’

 

‘I could have Jester _Send_ a message.’

 

‘Uh, well...in these situations there are pros and cons.’ He was telling her not to do it, Beau could tell. ‘What are the pros?’

 

‘The pros are that I reunite with someone that cares about my well-being and might be a potential ally.’

 

‘Cons?’

 

‘She’s more well-connected to the Empire than I even knew, and any information or exchange out of our meeting could result in the demise in either one of us.’ There were lots of ways that this could go. Either one of them being arrested as a spy, either against the Kryn, or against the Empire. Executed for treason...It was a long list with more bad outcomes than good.

 

‘I admit, I had not thought about that at all.’

 

‘I don’t know who I’m trying to protect more; myself or her. Or maybe I just have this like crazy thought that if we do something heroic, and I save the Empire and become a war hero that no-one has to be assassinated.’ Beau wasn’t even sure what the hypothetical thing that they would do to end the war would even be.

 

‘Real question. Do you care about the Empire? No judgment.’

 

Beau thought about it for a moment.

 

‘I didn’t think I did,’ she admitted. ‘It’s not the Empire that I care about. I just think the more and more that I’m on the ground and I’m walking and I’m seeing the faces of people from city to city, and everyone’s the fucking same. I mean sure people look different, have different customs and beliefs, but...everyone’s miserable, everyone’s trying to survive, everyone’s just trying to fucking...make a living and raise a family.’

 

‘Dairon always give you a fair shake?’ Damn Fjord. Always going on about fairness. Not that he was wrong. Dairon _had_ always given her a fair shake. More so, certainly, than most people in her life.

 

‘Yeah, but...at this point in time I’ve spent more time with you all than her.’

 

‘Yeah, but some of these come around – you gotta send ‘em back the other way. If she’s been fair to you, she deserves to get a fair shake from you. Doesn’t mean you need to send these things in opposition, but...I think if you don’t give her a heads-up, you’ll be fucked up about it. She’s a big girl, she can take care of herself.’ It was true. In her mind, when Beau thought of independence, she thought of Dairon, the badass Expositor, sneaking behind enemy lines alone.

 

‘Alright. Should probably tell her before tomorrow night, you think,’ Beau said. ‘Maybe she could help us. Or, she’ll slit my throat for being a traitor. I guess we’ll find out. A lot can happen in twenty-four hours.’

 

‘I guarantee she will if you don’t tell her.’ That, Beau definitely knew was true. More than once, she’d been worried about what might happen if she were to turn on Dairon, or vice-versa. It wasn't that she wanted to turn on Dairon. It was just she was trapped between a rock and a hard place. No matter which way she moved, she saw things that culd go wrong.

 

‘Yeah, you’re not wrong,’ Beau said. At least if she told Dairon sooner, rather than later, she could spin it in a good way. She sighed. ‘Let’s see how this works, I guess.’

 

 Whatever happened next, well, at least she had thought about it.


End file.
